


The Canal Date

by WhenIFindLoveAgain



Category: (여자)아이들 | (G)I-DLE
Genre: British Comedy, Character Study, Comedy, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Falling In Love, First Dates, Fluff, Love, Relationship(s), Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:22:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24800785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenIFindLoveAgain/pseuds/WhenIFindLoveAgain
Summary: Via the Internet, Heh Shuhua meets a girl called Song Yuqi, and they got on a date at a restaurant by a river. A remarkable evening ensues
Relationships: Song Yuqi/Yeh Shuhua
Kudos: 8





	The Canal Date

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write something quite sweet, six here we are xxx  
> Hit me up on instagram at @theartoftootimingyou

Shuhua was panicing ever so slightly. It would be fine. Of course it would be fine. Everything was going to be absolutely lovely. She was going to have an evening date - a beautiful Summer's night out - at a lovely restaurant with a peer by a canal that became a open lake full of ducks and other romantic young cuddles and little children wanting to paddle the water with laughing Dad's and tired Mum's scooping them under their armpits and pulling them away. What was there to be concerned about?

No cake for dessert, a voice warned her in the back of her head. Shuhua ran through the "advice list" that the young woman in the apartment above hers had given her; Shuhua wasn't extremely close to Chaeyoung but they often talked and Chaeyoung could get her hands cheaply on a expensive tea that Shuhua liked. Chaeyoung worked at a upmarket goods shop, and could get Shuhua her T2 loose tea-leaves for £3 and not £11 as was the price if a measly non-employee wanted it. Chaeyoung had told her, "Order the second cheapest wine - it's you're best bet - don't gorge yourself on dinner. Pack the spare toothbrush and toothpaste in your handbag so you have nice breath and take the tic-tacs - and! - chewing gum. Don't put on too much perfume and use roll-on deoderant, not the spray on, and, for God's sake, be careful not to latter you're tights!"

Shuhua took a look at herself in the mirror. She was fine. She was red a dark red satin slip dress that went to her mid-calves with a tight-fitting black turtleneck beneath, black tights and her tan-coloured leather boots which went to her knees. She looked good, she looked attractive. She looked sophisticated. 

In the village where Shuhua lived, it was only a ten minute walked down to the restaurant that was called, "The Garden Street Resturant", been built on Garden street and overlooking the canals that went to the lake. Shuhua saw she was the first to arrive; table number three on the peer. The table was made up with a white tablecloth and a black length of satin across the centre with a candle stuck in a frosted glass wine-bottle and a small bunch of Hawthorn tree blossom in a tiny antique vase. In the night-time, a marquee canopy was put over the peer, and other couples - old and young, platonic and relations and romantic - sat there eating and drinking comfortably and happily. Tiny gold fey lights illuminated the space along with the candles on the tables and the rose-coloured stained glass hanging-light fittings from the 1930's that Shuhua knew had come from her Father's antique shop on the West-side of the village. 

Her date was a young Chinese woman called Song Yuqi, and Shuhua had met Yuqi through the internet. Ok, on Instagram...on a LGBT+ singles dating page. When Shuhua had seen Yuqi, nearly 980 people had already liked her photograph and 108 people had commented on it. Shuhua knew Yuqi would have been bombarded with DM's, remarks and likes and follows on her account and her posts. Nonetheless, Shuhua had sent Yuqi a message.

"I love your eyes and your lips, and can I tell you a joke?" She had texted to Yuqi. Yuqi had responded the next morning. 

"Of course you can, hi!" Yuqi had texted back. "I love jokes!"

Unfortunately, this was where Yuqi had gotten stuck. She had gone up to ask Chaeyoung - who, thankfully, had departed yet for work at the local chemist - what to say. Shuhua nearly pissed herself laughing when she saw what Chaeyoung had texted back.

"Girl goes to party and finds her boyfriend dressed as a squirrel. She holds out her hand and tells him to follow her. She hops across the ground. "Nibble on me arse." She jokes."

"How the fuck did you..." Shuhua had buried her face in her hands, sitting on the back of Chaeyoung's couch as the other woman had grinned broadly.

Yuqi's response has been, "ASJOFBKOLVFDDJI!!! I DON'T QUITE GET IT BUT IT'S STILL SO AWESOME!"

It had come to Shuhua introducing her name, and then giving a second joke.

"This is so crazy! Where do you find all these funny things?" Had been Yuqi's reply.

This had led to Shuhua doing one of the bravest things she had ever done in her life. "Would you like to go out with me?" She had asked Yuqi.

"Let's go." Had been Yuqi's reply with a smile.

Shuhua was so lost in her own little world of thoughts that she started when someone tapped her shoulder. It was a tall waiter with Yuqi behind him. Shuhua's breath left her lungs. Yuqi's black hair was worn long and loose down her back and she was wearing a cotton day-dress patterned with yellow and black daisies with red high heeled shoes that Shuhua instantly loved. Yuqi carried a tan-leather handbag, and, inside, looked like a cream-colour cardigan sitting on top of all her other things. Yuqi wore little earrings in her ears that looked like cherry pairs with a little green leaf at the top of a black stem.

Shuhua quickly got herself together. She smiled and thanked the waiter, taking a wine and meal-listing menu, and as he left to get them their requirements, Shuhua found herself stumped opposite Yuqi. "Sorry, I've just got complete anobrain." Shuhua chuckled softly, tapping her temple. Yuqi looked utterly ethereal beneath and about the lights of the marquee canopy. 

"This place is so amazing." Yuqi smiled. "When you said you lived in a village, I thought it would all be old broken-up buildings and old people with oxen and goats and dirt roads." She smoothed some of her hair behind her ear. Yuqi had driven down from Seoul to the countryside. Shuhua appreciated Yuqi doing such a thing for someone she had never met before.

"I like you're earrings." Shuhua told Yuqi. Yuqi thanked her.

"Did that dress come from a shop down the road?" Yuqi pointed at Shuhua's dress. "I had a bit of a sticky-beak as I drove through." Shuhua nodded.

"My Grandmother made it; that's her and my Mum's shop." Shuhua explained. Yuqi beamed.

"Oh! That's so lovely!" Yuqi enthused. "You have a total paradise here!" She looked over the peer's railing. "It's a really nice night....everything looks so pretty..." Yuqi's expression became dreamy and blissful. Shuhua wondered if Yuqi had been panicing as well.

"As do you." Shuhua complimented Yuqi. 

They knew a few things about one another, so they weren't complete strangers. Shuhua knew the secret to perfecting the art of small-talk was to be interested in another person. However, Yuqi seemed to be using this tactic as well.

"Did you go to school in this village?" Yuqi asked.

"Yeah, I did." Shuhua replied. "Our Princple was a old dragon with a neck like a turkey." Yuqi burst out laughing at Shuhua's words. "She used to wear these amber beads - a really long necklace - wrapped three times around her throat. My Dad calls her, "Captain Pantsuit"."

"Oh my God..." Yuqi covered her face with her hands briefly before, as her face was revealed again, the waiter came back with their wine and some glasses. 

"Are you the Yeh's daughter? The tailors?" The waiter asked Shuhua suddenly. Yuqi grinned and sat back in her seat to watch as Shuhua's mouth came open a bit.

"Uh, yeah, that's my Mum and Grandma." Shuhua said.

"My boss wondered if you could give him their number; his wife can't sew and he needs his jeans altered but the landline number connected to the shop isn't working when he calls." The waiter explained. Yuqi giggled. Shuhua blushed.

"Tell me the best thing to do is to put a note under the door and leave his address. Mum and my Grandma will come around to do a fitting for him." Shuhua said.

"Sorry about interrupting you're night, it's just that the old git got onto me when he saw we had a "Yeh" had table three." The waiter rolled his eyes, and bowed to the girls before promising he'd be back soon with their food before doubling back and nearly falling over his feet as he apologised; he hadn't taken their orders yet. Yuqi didn't stop smiling; Shuhua took this as a massively wonderful achievement. She ordered vegetable fritter's with kimchi and Yuqi settled on roasted vegetables and all-spice fried chicken.

"You're not allergic to nuts?" The waiter checked with the women. They shook their heads. "Oh, thank Christ." He said. "We had a woman a few months ago who came in at lunch and got the all-spice fried chicken in a bread roll with some salad and then she had a reaction to the -"

"Hang on, was this just before the Midsummer Harvest?" Shuhua asked. The waiter nodded. Yuqi nearly pissed herself laughing. "I remember the ambulance." She told him. "The paramedics got into a fight with the grocer's - the Ahn family -" She explained for Yuqi's benefit. "About the ambulance been outside their shop. Was that the time that local bobby got hit by that orange?" She checked with the waiter. Yuqi had a fresh bout of hysterics.

"Why did - why's a policeman getting fruit thrown at him?" Yuqi asked, not quite able to breathe and her face charmingly flushed.

"Because when the poor bloke turned up to try and sort out what was going on Ahn Senior - who's in his late fifties - came out and started pelting him with fruit and tell him to bugger off." The waiter explained. Yuqi picked up a napkin from the table and wiped her eyes. She was set off again as Shuhua did the same, except with the hem of the waiter's apron.

The rest of the evening passed wonderfully.

"Would you like to come back to mine for a coffee?" Shuhua asked Yuqi as they left the restaurant after two hours. 

"Do you have a cake?" Yuqi asked. Shuhua blinked. And fancy bloody Chaeyoung giving her a no dessert rule, eh?

"No, but my neighbour does." Shuhua said. "Strawberry Victoria Sponge."

"Oh!" Yuqi's eyes glowed. "A proper English style one?"

"Oh, yeah." Shuhua nodded. "Chaeyoung likes British things."

"I like British baking." Yuqi said. "I downloaded the "Bake-Off" episodes on my laptop to learn how they do it; plus I love Nigella Lawson and Mary Berry and Delia Smith."

"Who?" Shuhua was left foreign to all these English names.

"They're all famous women cooks in England." Yuqi explained. "Dessert Queens."

"How do you stay so nicely-shaped, then?" Shuhua asked. Yuqi giggled. They walked down May street - the second busiest street of the village to High street, Garden Street and Pipe Street - arm in arm. Yuqi rested her head a little bit against Shuhua's shoulder. The night was Summery and warm. They didn't need coats.

"Because I eat British baked goods and nothing else and I drink heaps of tea." Yuqi explained.

"God, that sounds amazing." Shuhua told Yuqi sincerely.

"Yes, it is very amazing." Yuqi's eyes crinkled slightly at the sides as she smiled once more. Things seemed like a dream. Shuhua nearly couldn't believe it. But, here she was. Yuqi, the proof on her shoulder and her arm.

How blissful was this?


End file.
